George Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke

General George Augustus Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke and 8th Earl of Montgomery KG PC (10 September 1759 – 26 October 1827) was an English peer, army officer and politician.

Early life

Born Lord Herbert at the family home, Wilton House in Wilton, he was the only son of Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of Pembroke and 7th Earl of Montgomery and his wife, Elizabeth, the second daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough.^[1] He had a younger sister Charlotte, who died at the age of 10. He was educated at home and then Harrow School from 1770 to 1775. Through his grandmother Mary FitzWilliam, daughter of the 5th Viscount FitzWilliam, he inherited the substantial FitzWilliam estates in Dublin.

Military career

After leaving Harrow, Herbert was appointed an ensign in the 12th Regiment of Foot in 1775 and travelled the continent over the next five years, visiting France, Austria, Eastern Europe, Russia and Italy with Rev. William Coxe and Capt. John Floyd.

Herbert was promoted to a lieutenant in 1777 and became a captain in the 75th Regiment of Foot in 1778, before transferring to 1st The Royal Dragoons later that year. In 1781, he transferred to the 22nd Light Dragoons and the following year was promoted to a lieutenant-colonel in the 2nd Dragoon Guards.

At the start of the French Revolutionary Wars, Herbert saw action in Flanders, where he commanded the 2nd and 3rd Dragoon Guards and liaised with Prussian and Austrian forces. He was also active in the Siege of Valenciennes (1793) and captured an enemy post at Hundssluyt, near Dunkirk, later that year.

Politics

At the general election of 1780, Herbert became Member of Parliament for the family borough of Wilton and sided with the Whig opposition. He held the seat until 1784 when he was appointed Vice-Chamberlain of the Household and sworn of the Privy Council. He held the seat for Wilton again from 1788 to 1794, the year he inherited his father's titles and estate and also succeeded him as Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire.

Marriages

On 8 April 1787, Lord Pembroke married his first cousin, Elizabeth Beauclerk (d. 1793), the daughter of Topham Beauclerk and his wife, Diana.

After the death of his wife in 1793, Pembroke married Countess Catherine Semyonovna Vorontsova, on 25 January 1808. Catherine was the daughter of the prominent Russian aristocrat and diplomat Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov.^[2]

Issue

Later life

In 1795, Pembroke was promoted to a major-general and became colonel of the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons in 1797. He was further promoted to a lieutenant-general in 1802 and appointed a Knight of the Garter in 1805. After serving as a plenipotentiary on a special mission to Austria in 1807, he was aso appointed Governor of Guernsey and finally promoted to a general in 1812.

Lord Pembroke died on 26 October 1827 at his London home, Pembroke House and was buried at Wilton on 12 November. After having previously quarreled with his eldest surviving son, Robert, over the latter's marriage to the widowed Italian princess, Octavia Spinelli de Rubari, Pembroke left the bulk of his unentailed and personal estate to his only son by his second wife, Sidney (later created Baron Herbert of Lea).

Notes

References

• S. M. Farrell. "Herbert, George Augustus, eleventh earl of Pembroke and eighth earl of Montgomery (1759–1827), army officer and landowner". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 12 March 2008. 
• Cokayne et al., The Complete Peerage